Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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"Hine(y) ma tov u'ma-nayim, Shevet ach-im gam ya-chad," reads the first verse of Psalms 133. ""Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" As American Jews across the country joined together in solidarity to express concern for the three Israeli teens who were kidnapped on June 13, the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis organized a #BringBackOurBoys solidarity vigil for Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrah...
NEW YORK (JTA) – The Reform movement posted a prayer. Chabad asked followers to pledge to do a mitzvah. The Jewish Federations of North America set up a Web page to express solidarity. The disappearance of three Israeli teens in Judea and Samaria last week is being taken as a call to action uniting many disparate elements of the American Jewish community. At synagogues across America spanning the major denominations, Jews recited psalms or offered special prayers for the safe return of the t...
The President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, arrived last Tuesday June 24, on a diplomatic visit to the United States of America for what was his final foreign trip as the president of the State of Israel after a 7-year term in office and over 65 years of public service. During the visit President Peres met with President Obama at the White House and received the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony attended by House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate...
(JTA) – When Argentina plays its opening-round matches in the World Cup, Mariano Schlez of Buenos Aires will be screaming his support from the stands. But taking in his home country's matches in Brazil isn't all that will be occupying Schlez for the first fortnight of the monthlong soccer spectacle. Also filling his calendar are 14 "Jewish" events that he and his wife have organized in seven of the host cities. They include Shabbat evening prayers, beach soccer games leading into Saturday n...
By Joseph Telushkin NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, was inarguably the most well-known rabbi since Moses Maimonides. Hundreds of prominent rabbinic figures have lived in the intervening 800 years since Maimonides died. But how many can be named before an audience of Jews from the United States, Israel, France or the former Soviet Union — the four largest Jewish communities in the world today — and be so widely recognized, without the speaker needing to add several sentences explaining who the p...
Somali militants who murdered 48 people in a Kenyan village as they watched the World Cup went door to door asking residents if they were Muslim or spoke Somali — and shot them dead if either answer was ‘no,’ witnesses revealed. “They came to our house at around 8 p.m. and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims,” Anne Gathigi told the Daily Mail. “My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest.” In a joint statement, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and the Chief Rabbi o...
Temple L'Chayim Synagogue is now settled in its permanent home in Clermont. They had a Torah Walk on Friday evening, May 23, and even their oldest member, Millie Altholz, 99, joined in the walk. Altholz will be 100 years old on Jan. 14, 2015. The congregants wanted her to sit at the synagogue during the walk, however, she felt the honor was too great not to walk and so she walked. Altholz is actively involved in synagogue life as the synagogue's telephone chairman and does a magnificent job,...
When the L'Oreal (Maybelline) president, Frederic Roze, encouraged all personnel to dedicate Friday, June 13, to volunteering in their local community, Kim Schiller immediately contacted Jewish Pavilion to offer her time and enthusiasm. Schiller is passionate about volunteering and giving back to her community but her long hours at work, and family obligations, often prevent her from such an opportunity. June 13 was dedicated to volunteering for her. She shared Shabbat with many seniors living...
Brown's New York Deli in Maitland is celebrating its one-year anniversary for the entire week of June 30 through July 6. Kosher reubens (the most popular item on the menu) will be half price all week. There will be free mini potato knishes for all who walk through the door and daily drawings for free meals. According to owner, Lauren Brown, "The first year of a restaurant is the most challenging. We have been very pleased with the reviews and responses to our product and service." On July 1,...
During the war in Iraq, when I was still living in London and coordinating news coverage of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein for various international media organizations, I was in regular contact with a brave Iraqi Kurdish journalist named Ayub Nuri. When Ayub and I finally met in person, several years later in New York, we spent a couple of hours talking about the region generally, and specifically about whether Israel had a natural ally in the Kurds. So it was with some pleasure, in the midst of a horrible news week for the Middle East, that...
Life on the borders of cultures has been brought again to the fore in the crisis of three boys. We are seeing how far apart we are from Palestinians who celebrate the kidnapping, compare it to Israel’s imprisonment of their heroes who we see as murderers. And how far apart we are from Americans and other westerners who criticize us for overreacting against Palestinians, and cannot see what we do in the preaching and actions of Muslims. Cultures are fuzzy, and the borders between them are not impenetrable to some degree of understanding and s...
Today I want to write about the three kidnapped teenagers in Israel. That’s today. However, by the time this is printed, the crisis may well be over, for good or evil. This act, however it plays out, is terror, plain and simple. For the three sets of parents in Israel, it is of little concern whether just these three or another 100 were kidnapped. Terror of any kind is really a personal experience. When terrorists blew up the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, most of the dead were teenagers. Koby Mandel was 13 when he and a friend were b...
In a rare quiet moment, John Ruskay, who is stepping down at the end of the month after 15 years as CEO and executive vice president ofUJA-Federation of New York, sat in his office on East 59th Street and described his feelings these days as “running in a relay race, trying to hand the baton” to his successor, Eric Goldstein, as seamlessly as possible. That baton, in effect, is the world’s largest local charity, a complex organization with a staff of 475 people, which raises more than $140 million a year for a wide range of local, natio...
What does it mean to be a member of a “tribe”? I get an inkling during weeks like these, when the majority of the world is consumed by a quadrennial soccer tournament, and a small slice is convulsed over the abduction of three teenage boys. L’havdil, I know. But somehow both events — one celebratory and somewhat artificial, the other horrific and as real as it gets — turn disparate, even feuding individuals into a unified mass. The impulse is to gather with others like ourselves, wrap ourselves in the symbols of our tribes, and celebrate...
The World Jewish Congress solidarity mission I led to Brussels on June 2 demonstrated an ancient Jewish principle that we at WJC strive to accomplish every day: Kol Yisrael arevim ze le ze – all Jews are responsible for one another. Organized in mere days, the mission brought 38 senior Jewish leaders from 16 different countries to the Belgian capital, where we were greeted with an outpouring of emotion from this community stricken by the heinous anti-Semitic terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium. At a ceremony on June 2 at the museum...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday and Thursday, 8 a.m. 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona—Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy of Orlando—Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Temple Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, JUNE 27 Light S...
WESTFIELD, N.J. (N.J. Jewish News) — Over the years, Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, the largest Reform synagogue in New Jersey, has been on the receiving end of public criticism for a variety of reasons. As a newly arrived rabbi in the late-1960s, I learned how our temple was upbraided because our members were supporting fair housing practices in the Westfield area. Then we opposed a church-like Christmas pageant in the public high school. (A federal judge upheld our cause.) In the 1970s, the national media reported that prior to a visit of V...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Handing out sandwiches to the homeless in a Washington, D.C. park proved to be a seminal moment for Joe Goldberg. "It was a turning point and opened my eyes to what the world is like," Goldberg, 18, said of his 10th-grade confirmation trip two years ago to the nation's capital. The St. Louis native is currently serving as the international social action/tikkun olam vice president for United Synagogue Youth (USY), the Conservative youth group. Goldberg assumed his...
Arnold J. Lazar, MD, age 68, died the morning of June 13, 2014 after a long battle with cancer. He was 68 years old. Dr. Lazar was a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Central Florida for 38 years. He received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and his medical degree from the University of Iowa. It was during their residency at the University of Iowa that he and Donald Diebel, MD decided to begin practicing in Orlando. Together they co-founded OB&GYN Specialists, which has since grown to include 13 physicians and three...
NEW YORK (JTA) - Robots can hold a conversation, but should they count in a minyan? A chatbot at Britain's University of Reading was heralded this week as passing the Turing test, showing a conversational ability that managed to fool people into thinking it was human. Using the fictional identity of a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy with the name Eugene Goostman, the robot convinced a third of a panel's members that they were interacting with a fellow human being. While some have expressed skepticism...
In January 2013, new Maitland resident, Amy McCully and her husband Kyle, received a postcard in the mail advertising the Roth Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando's sports & fitness programs. They had been shopping for a place to work out and take group exercise classes, and found that the JCC was the perfect fit. "I was in a group fitness class just about everyday," said McCully, who at the time was running the children's tennis program at the Winter Park Tennis Center. Her love for...
Marci and Jeff Gaeser of Chuluota and David Meyers and Thuy Pham of Pittsburgh, Pa., are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Patricia Anna Meyers to Adam Scott Primi, son of Christopher Primi of Warrenton, Va., and the late Marjorie Primi of Boca Raton, Fla. The bride-elect attended Seminole State College and is employed as a merchandise manager at Barnes & Noble. The groom-elect graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and...
"Ole', Ole', Ole', Ole'"... As an entertainer, I've been to Brazil (Brasilians spell it with an S) a few times to record and perform. I love the country, the people... everything! My agent, ROBERTO DRATCU, is a Brasilairo, born and raised in Sao Paulo, but has visited here in Central Florida to work with me and others. He is also Jewish. As you probably know, soccer is major in Brazil. Every time a Brazilian team wins a match somewhere in the world, the entire cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Jane...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA)—A Dutch Jewish television channel won the first prize for original production at a festival for religious broadcasters from across Europe. The Hilversum-based Joodse Omroep television station plucked the prize for best television production with its nine-part series “Zoek de verschillen” (“Look for the differences”) at the four-day European Festival of Religious Programmes, which ended last week and was held for the 18th time in Holland’s studio city, Hilversum. The program, which examines Jewish communities...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Palestinian village of Battir was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO and put on the List of World Heritage in Danger. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee on Friday approved the West Bank village, about six miles west of Jerusalem, for inclusion on the lists. Battir is known for its ancient stone farming terraces and an irrigation system established in Roman times that remains in use. It was put on the danger list due to the start of construction of Israel’s security fence. According to the committee, Battir was added “afte...
